Documentary
Rod Lott
Remember how joyous you felt at the end of 2006's excellent Irish indie Once? Well, The Swell Season is why there is no sequel. Hell, it practically is the sequel, only factual instead of fictional.
Saturday 25 May
OKG Newsletter
Topic: Academy
The Swell Season
Lightning strikes ‘Once.’
Documentary
Rod Lott
Remember how joyous you felt at the end of 2006's excellent Irish indie Once? Well, The Swell Season is why there is no sequel. Hell, it practically is the sequel, only factual instead of fictional.
Greetin’ Keaton
Four-time Academy Award nominee Diane Keaton is headed to the Civic Center.
Well, la-di-dah, la-di-dah: Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton — star of such classics as Annie Hall, The Godfather trilogy and Reds — is coming to Oklahoma City. Next month, she’ll serve as the keynote speaker at Integris Health’s 26th annual Women’s Health Forum.
According to a press release, Keaton “will reveal how to be fearless.” (My educated-guess answer: Have millions of dollars to fall back on.)
The event is free, but reservations are required, at 951-2277, and you know this will fill up fast. Her speech is slated for 5 p.m. Sept. 9 at Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker. —Rod Lott
Hey! Read This:
• Annie Hall Blu-ray review
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
The truth hurts.
Documentary
Rod Lott
I can't believe — just. cannot. believe. — that Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory lost the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature this past spring. And to a football movie, no less! It's another case of the jocks running ragged over the outcasts, except these outcasts were able to effect something few docs achieve: change.
Searching for Sugar Man
A true story that's truly sweet.
Documentary
Phil Bacharach
This is a golden age of documentaries, and I don’t mean the propagandistic variety via Michael Moore or 2016: Obama’s America. Given the pervasive timidity and lack of imagination in Hollywood today, film buffs are well advised to take stock of documentaries, where the most gripping stories are being told.
Amour
The Oscar-nominated drama is cold-blooded, yet remarkable.
Drama
Phil Bacharach
Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke isn't the obvious choice for a movie about love at its weightiest and most profound. In previous works like Funny Games, The Piano Teacher, The White Ribbon and Caché, he has crafted cinematic nipple twists that tweak audiences while examining humankind at its cruelest.
Argo
2012's presumed Best Picture winner hits home video.
Thriller
Phil Bacharach
Generating suspense from a story that is a matter of historical record is no easy thing. That was the primary challenge facing Ben Affleck and Chris Terrio, the director-star and writer, respectively, of Argo, a thriller inspired by a real-life covert operation that helped rescue six U.S. embassy workers out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis.
The Master
‘Master’ful filmmaking, yet impenetrable for some.
Drama
Rod Lott
Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is my least favorite of the director’s half-dozen films. That said, he has yet to make a bad one.
Oscar, Oscar!
Even half a country away, Oklahoma has not gone unnoticed in Academy Awards history.
I’ll start with the obvious: The 85th annual Academy Awards air Sunday night on ABC.
Now for the not-so-obvious: A hell of a lot of Oklahomans have won or been nominated for the Oscars in years past, and three such statuettes are on display in the Oklahoma History Center’s ongoing Oklahoma @ the Movies exhibit.
To celebrate Sunday’s big event, the OHC has passed along this list of Okie-centric films, actors, actresses and behind-the-camera talent who’ve been blessed by Oscar’s gaze. —Rod Lott
Oklahoma Movies with Best Picture Oscar/Nominations:
• Cimarron (1931) Best Picture Oscar
• The Awful Truth (1937) Best Picture Nomination
• The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Best Picture Nomination
• Picnic (1956) Best Picture Nomination
• How the West Was Won (1962) Best Picture Nomination
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Best Picture Nomination
• The Last Picture Show (1971) Best Picture Nomination
• Bound for Glory (1976) Best Picture Nomination
• Rain Man (1988) Best Picture Oscar
Oscar-Winning Oklahomans:
Joan Crawford
• Mildred Pierce (1945) Best Actress Oscar
• Possessed (1947) Best Actress Nomination
• Sudden Fear (1952) Best Actress Nomination
Blake Edwards
• Victor/Victoria (1982) Best Adapted Screenplay Nomination
• Honorary Oscar for Career Achievement (2004)
Gray Frederickson
• The Godfather, Part II (1974) Best Picture Oscar
• Apocalypse Now (1979) Best Picture Nomination
Gene Havlick
• Lost Horizon (1937) Best Film Editing Oscar
• You Can't Take It with You (1938) Best Film Editing Nomination
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Best Film Editing Nomination
Van Heflin
• Johnny Eager (1942) Best Supporting Actor Oscar
Ron Howard
• A Beautiful Mind (2001) Best Picture Oscar
• A Beautiful Mind (2001) Best Director Oscar
• Frost/Nixon (2008) Best Picture Nomination
• Frost/Nixon (2008) Best Director Nomination
Ben Johnson
• The Last Picture Show (1971) Best Supporting Actor Oscar
Jennifer Jones
• The Song of Bernadette (1943) Best Actress Oscar
• Since You Went Away (1944) Best Actress Nomination
• Love Letters (1945) Best Actress Nomination
• Duel in the Sun (1946) Best Actress Nomination
• Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1955) Best Actress Nomination
Steve LaPorte
• Beetlejuice (1988) Best Makeup Oscar
Matthew Mungle
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) Best Makeup Oscar
• Schindler's List (1993) Best Makeup Nomination
• Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) Best Makeup Nomination
• Albert Nobbs (2011) Best Makeup Nomination
Elmo Williams
• High Noon (1952) Best Film Editing Oscar
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) Best Film Editing Nomination
Michael Wilson
• A Place in the Sun (1951) Best Screenplay Oscar
• 5 Fingers (1952) Best Screenplay Nomination
• Friendly Persuasion (1956) Best Adapted Screenplay Nomination
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Best Adapted Screenplay Nomination
Oscar-Nominated Oklahomans:
Margaret Avery
• The Color Purple (1985) Best Supporting Actress Nomination
Lucien Ballard
• The Caretakers (1963) Best Black-and-White Cinematography Nomination
Ralph Bane
• Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) "The Trolley Song" Best Original Song Nomination
• Good News (1947) "Pass that Peace Pipe" Best Original Song Nomination
Gary Busey
• The Buddy Holly Story (1978) Best Actor Nomination
James Garner
• Murphy's Romance (1985) Best Actor Nomination
Ed Harris
• Apollo 13 (1995) Best Supporting Actor Nomination
• The Truman Show (1998) Best Supporting Actor Nomination
• Pollock (2000) Best Actor Nomination
• The Hours (2002) Best Supporting Actor Nomination
Carol Littleton
• E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) Best Film Editing Nomination
• The Thin Red Line (1998) Best Director Nomination
• The Thin Red Line (1998) Best Adapted Screenplay Nomination
• The Tree of Life (2011) Best Director Nomination
Jack Oakie
• The Great Dictator (1940) Best Supporting Actor Nomination
Brad Pitt
• Twelve Monkeys (1995) Best Supporting Actor Nomination
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) Best Actor Nomination
• Moneyball (2011) Best Picture Nomination
• Moneyball (2011) Best Actor Nomination
Alfre Woodard
• Cross Creek (1983) Best Supporting Actress Nomination
Hey! Read This:
• Beetlejuice: 20th Anniversary Edition DVD review
• Oklahoma @ the Movies exhibit feature
• The Tree of Life film review
Film it
OKG7 things to do
Gazette staff
Fresh from its Academy Award win for Best Foreign Language Film, Austria’s feel-bad hit Amour tells a powerful story of a longtime married couple and one unpredictable pigeon. The drama unspools at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 5:30 and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch. Tickets are $5-$8. Call 236-3100 or visit okcmoa.com.
Thursday-Sunday
Hey! Read This:
• Amour film review
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga / The Gatekeepers
Two new documentaries have little in common in subject, but share excellence in quality.
Documentary
Phil Bacharach
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga
7:30 p.m. Thursday, 5:30 and 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
415 Couch
okcmoa.com
236-3100
$6-$8
The Gatekeepers
daily, ongoing
AMC Quail Springs Mall 24
2501 W. Memorial
755-2466
amctheatres.com
